07 October 2005
Ministers have left ample scope to opt out of implementing two-tier workforce agreements across the public sector, despite pledging to end pay variations for transferred staff, a leading academic has warned.
Professor Keith Ewing, a labour law expert at King's College London, also believes that Labour Party leaders made such 'vague and watery' commitments under the broader Warwick Agreement with the trades unions that the government could back away from concessions on other employment issues during its third term.
Speaking at an employment rights seminar in London on October 5, Ewing dismissed parts of the Warwick Agreement – concluded at the Labour Party National Policy Forum in 2004 to prevent union opposition to economic and workforce reforms – as 'mere rhetoric' and containing few 'cast-iron guarantees'.
At the Labour Party's annual conference last week, Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown said they were still committed to 'honouring' the Warwick Agreement on 'ending' the two-tier workforce. This refers to variations in terms and conditions between public sector staff who transfer to the private sector and new recruits who join later.
But Ewing told Public Finance: 'If you look at the actual wording of the main document that followed Warwick… it does not say there's an agreement to remove the two-tier workforce, but to simply address it more widely across the public sector.
'There is a lot of policy “wriggle room” at ministers' disposal and as far as the trade unions are concerned they have a tough negotiating process ahead of them.'
Although the local government sector has made significant progress towards ending two-tier pay, and health sector staff this week moved towards agreement on Agenda for Change, other parts of the public sector have been frustrated by the lack of progress in eradicating variable terms and conditions.
Geoff Lewtas, the national pay negotiator at the Public and Commercial Services union, told PF there are real fears that 'vast disparities' in civil servants' terms and conditions 'would become the norm' unless the Cabinet Office acts quickly.
'We welcomed the prime minister's and chancellor's words last week, but we have concerns about the spirit of the Warwick agreement – in particular what constitutes the public sector in ministers' eyes,' he said.
Lewtas claims the Treasury, for example, has identified around 12 civil service bodies, such as the Land Registry – that it wants exempted from future two-tier agreements.
PFoct2005
